NORWICH – Empire State Development, the economic development division of New York State, has renewed its annual contract with the 82 Empire Zones throughout New York State.

The annual contract includes performance based funding allocations which help local empire zones such as the Greater Norwich Empire Zone market their area, attract businesses, retain businesses, and take advantage of marketing and promotional opportunities.

Once again this year, the Greater Norwich Empire Zone was one of the top-ranked zones in New York State, based on the state’s analysis of the 2006 zone performance. Each zone is given points based on the quality of applications, overall assessment of zone administrative performance, and meeting goals and objectives of their Development Plan.